i alone know
by rodomontading
Summary: the hades and persephone myth, loki'd. currently rated teen; rating subject to change with later chapters.
1. tricking the trickster

Sif liked to watch him practice his illusions.

He did so often, and always alone. He wandered to the very reaches of Asgard, where no one would stumble upon him practicing his tricks, but he could not hide from her. She should have been doing other things—namely, keeping an eye on the dead of the Nine Realms—but whenever he slipped away from everyone else to practice, she had to watch him. She had spoken to him a handful of times, but he captivated her. His was the sort of company she could imagine keeping—for who would want to be in the presence of the Lady of the Dead unless they were dead or about to be? She had a few friends—Hogun, Fandral, Volstagg, Thor—but they did not fill the void that she felt, the aching loneliness of the Asgardian underworld that constantly pressed on her heart. There was something special about the dark Asgardian prince.

She wanted him.

The trick, of course, would be figuring out how to get him to come to her. He would never go of his own volition. He may have been different than the others—a little darker around the edges, a little more of an outcast—but that didn't mean he would willingly submit himself to the kingdom of the dead. She would have to think carefully about this.

She tried to focus on other things—namely, ruling the underworld. The winter was cruel this year, and the weaker ones were succumbing to the final sleep. She ferried them around as best as she could, looked after them, set them to their feast. Perhaps she should have been keeping an eye on Fenrir, but there was nothing to indicate that he would be party crashing any time soon. The magic of the underworld would warn her when he got too near—not that she would be able to do much about it, anyway.

She journeyed above one day, leaving the underworld in the command of one of her subordinates. She found her friends throughout Asgard, and she stopped to speak with each of them. Hogun she spoke to only briefly; she encountered him on the training ground, battling through the intense wind and cold. What little skin he had left exposed to the air looked raw and cold, and they merely exchanged pleasantries before Sif moved on. Volstagg she found having a drink and bouncing his daughter on his knee. He seemed content to be inside, and laughed uproariously when she informed him that Hogun was outside training.

"Damned fool," he said fondly. "I'm much happier in here with some ale and pleasant company." He tickled his daughter, who giggled. "No dead men for you today?"

Sif smiled. "Well, you know what they say about dead men, Volstagg—they tell no tales." She waved and left him alone with his daughter.

Thor she found standing just inside a doorway, looking out over winter-ravaged Asgard. He did not stir at her approach, and Sif stood at his side without speaking. She was about to say something to alert him to her presence when he spoke to her.

"It is him, I know it," he said, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. There was something pained in his expression, his usually laughing eyes were veiled. Sif found him difficult to read. "Loki," he added, looking over at her. "This is Loki's doing."

Sif thought of Loki, his fluid movements, his illusions practiced so far from Asgard. "What of him?"

Thor pushed himself off the doorframe and paced, his hand twitching toward Mjolnir at his hip. "Ever since he has learned of his parentage, we have had this abominable winter. It is worse than the rest, and Mother fears that it will not end when the spring comes. Loki's influence may be too much for it."

Sif's eyes narrowed. What had she missed? "His parentage?"

"Loki is of Jotunheim." Sif suppressed a gasp. "He is Laufey's son, cast out into the snow to die. Father took him in when he was a baby, and he and Mother raised Loki as their own. And yet… He is angry with them. He does not forgive them."

"Would you?"

Thor looked at Sif, and it was difficult to read his expression. She wondered if she had gone too far. Thor was like a brother to her, but sometimes she found him as difficult to read as Loki. She wasn't sure what had compelled her to defend Loki, but something had bristled in her when Thor had attacked him.

After a moment, Thor's shoulders slumped and his gaze softened.

"I do not know," he admitted. "It is not for me to say what I would do. But Loki casts off so many years of brotherhood between us and begins to act as if I am the enemy. This winter he has inflicted upon us…it is to punish me."

Sif's brow furrowed. "But surely you didn't know of his parentage?"

Thor snorted. "Of course I did not know. But yet Loki blames me." He sighed. "And I do not blame him. I can see now that Father was not always fair to him. But Asgard will perish under this winter if something is not done to curb it." He clenched his fist. "But Loki is still my brother, no matter what he may say—and so I am at an impasse."

Sif frowned. "This is grave, indeed. I will leave you to your thoughts."

Thor gave her a half-smile and nodded, and she moved off to continue her circuit of the area. She had almost decided to return to the underworld, perhaps to actually check on Fenrir (just to reassure herself—she was sure he was nowhere in sight), when she came across Fandral. He was swaying slightly, and his armor looked as if it had been hastily replaced, but of all of her friends, she knew Fandral would help her.

When he saw her, he broke into a lopsided smile. "The Lady Sif!" he boomed. "Back from the world of the dead to grace us with her presence!"

"Yes," she replied with a close-lipped smile. She looked around, then tugged him into an alcove.

"My good lady, I am sure the underworld is a lonely place, but I do not know if I can satisfy your appetite after—ah, after so recently whetting my own…" Under the influence of drink, he was still speaking more loudly than he should, and she clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Listen to me, Fandral," she whispered. "I know Asgard suffers in this winter, but I have a plan that I believe will save you from this winter."

Fandral's eyebrow quirked, and she felt his lips move under her hand. She pulled her hand away and tilted her head to the side. "Lead on, good lady."

Sif was glad she had chosen to speak to Fandral. Hogun would not have understood, and while Volstagg would have helped, he would have shaken his head at her like a disapproving father. And Thor had never been a possibility at all. No, it had to be Fandral. The fact that he was more than a little drunk was simply an added bonus.

* * *

She had told him where to find Loki, where he usually practiced his illusions. He was, Sif realized now, venting his frustrations. He was doing it far from Asgard, which she thought noble. Perhaps she was mistaken, but then again, perhaps not. And it made no difference to her. The knowledge of Loki's true parentage had added to her conviction to bring him to the underworld with her. Asgard would be crippled by this winter if something were not done. She was doing this for the greater good of the realm.

Or so she told herself.

Loki's face could be best described as bored and at worst as annoyed when Fandral began speaking to him. She took a moment to admire him. Fandral could hold his own for a moment or two longer. There was so much _control_ in his expression, even if he was the cause of the terrible winter that was ravaging Asgard. It was amazing, how his face could betray nothing that he did not want it to. She wondered if he was an illusion. If when she rose from the ground to grasp him, her hands would meet empty air, and all of her attempted trickery would be for naught. But she couldn't allow herself to think that way if she wanted to go through with this, and she did.

She wanted him, and she would get him.

Sif was not Lady of the Underworld for nothing. The ground behind Loki erupted, and Sif leapt out of it, swift as an arrow. She wrapped an arm around Loki's neck, around another his waist, and used her momentum and his surprise to allow them to fall backwards into the chasm. It closed above them as they fell, cutting off Fandral's slurred cry of, "Godspeed, Lady Sif!"

She kept expecting the Frost Giant in her arms to disappear, to vanish in a puff of smoke. But he remained solid and intact. Her arms did not pass through him. And when they landed back in her underworld, Sif knew she had won. She had him. She was still smiling triumphantly when he turned to her, his expression haughty and unreadable, and arched an eyebrow.

"My, my, Lady Sif... To what do I owe the pleasure?"


	2. lady of the dead

He had been caught unawares.

It was rare that Loki could be surprised, but he had been preoccupied as of late. Asgard blamed him for the horrible winter that had besieged them these past months. Normally Loki would have reveled in such infamy, but it had turned him into more of a pariah than usual. He stood knee-deep in the snow, as far away from the main hall as possible. The illusions helped him clear his mind, allowed him to think. He had much to think about these days. Thor, the blundering oaf, kept attempting to engage him in conversation. He always had an apology ready, but it was never what Loki wanted to hear. There was nothing Thor could say to him that would lighten his mood. He had been lied to for his entire life, and that was a major failing.

If the Father of Lies could not tell when someone was lying to him, what good was he? He hardly deserved his title. He snarled, flicking his wrist. A small knife appeared in his palm, and he threw it at a nearby stump. It stuck with a dull _thunk_. He grimaced in satisfaction and was about to retrieve the knife when one of Thor's henchmen appeared at his elbow. He was humming under his breath, swaying side to side. He smelled of drink, but not in an offensive way. Just enough to tell Loki that Fandral was far from sober. It was hard to tell what he was saying.

"This weather we seem to be having—" he began.

Loki would have liked to die.

As Fandral stood there, teetering as he gesticulated wildly with his arms, the ground below Loki's feet opened up. There was no time for him to react, no time to cast an illusion. A strong arm wrapped around his throat, the other around his waist, and then he was falling backwards. Fandral shouted something that Loki didn't hear. He struggled, but only a little; if he was falling to his death, he could attempt to use the person holding him as a cushion upon which to land. If he broke free and fell on his own, he could very well die. There was no need for such tactics, however. He landed on his feet, and the hold around his neck and his waist disappeared.

Loki had never been in the underworld before, although he could have guessed what it looked like. It was rather bleak, in shades of blue, gray, and black. Small blue flames sprouted here and there. Some looked as if they burned constantly, while others winked out in the seconds Loki stood watching. He could see several deceased being ushered along a creeping black path. Somewhere behind him and out of his line of vision, something gigantic and monstrous howled. There was only one person who could have kidnapped him.

He arched an eyebrow and turned around. "My, my, Lady Sif… To what do I owe the pleasure?"

If he expected her to be surprised at his composure, she didn't show it. She stood watching him with her hands on her hips, her chin tilted slightly up. She looked striking, dressed all in black as she was. Loki wondered if it was a prerequisite of her to dress in black or if it was a choice she made all on her own. She looked, if he dared to say so, proud of herself, although he could not fathom why.

"Well?" he prompted.

Her eyebrows shot up. "The Lady of the Dead need not explain herself to one such as yourself, trickster."

He smirked. "Oooh, we _are_ feisty, aren't we. To be fair, Lady of the Dead," he said the title with emphatic scorn, "_you_ kidnapped _me_, so I think it fair that I have questions to ask."

"I never said it was unfair for you to _have_ questions," she replied, smirking herself. "Only that I may choose not to _answer_ them."

Loki ground his teeth. He looked above him, hoping to see the cavernous hole through which they had fallen, but the ceiling had sealed itself. He saw only rock. There was no use to trying to escape, he knew. Sif had command of everything in the underworld, and even he would be powerless against her. He thought she might even be able to stop his illusions if she tried.

He did not like the thought of that.

"I demand you return me aboveground." His snarl and haughtiness faltered somewhat as he realized she was walking away from him—actually walking away. Her hips swayed effortlessly. A fine mist swirled around her ankles. She was making her way for a throne of some sort. Unlike Odin's resplendent throne, Sif's was made of some shining, black stone. Obsidian, perhaps. It did not look very comfortable, but Sif reclined in it as if it were the most comfortable chair in the world.

There must be some trick to it.

He stalked in her direction, trying to cover up the awkwardness of finding the one to whom he was making demands had walked away. She surveyed him with an amused, bored expression. He knew it well, for he was master of it. Yet she looked for all the world—or underworld, as it were—that she had invented such a posture, such a look, such a bearing. It set his teeth on edge. A growl rumbled in his throat.

"So very _feral_," she said, a touch of mockery in her gleeful tone. "I never knew what an animal instinct you have, Loki."

He felt a vein pulsing in his throat. "_Enough_! I am a _prince_ of _Asgard_, and you _will_ return me to my home. I command you."

All at once, Sif's easy, mocking demeanor turned steely. Her eyes flashed and the smile dropped from her face. She sat up very straight and leaned towards him and, even though he was standing and she sat, Loki had the impression that she was bearing down on him.

"You are in _my_ kingdom now, _prince_," she spat. "And you would do well to remember that. The kings aboveground have no power here. Here, Death rules, and I am the mistress of Death. Forgetting that may earn you a permanent place among my collection of souls."

They stared at one another, daggers in their eyes. Loki's pulse beat quickly. No one—not even Odin—had challenged him in such a manner as Sif dared.

"By the way," she began, relaxing back into her throne again. "Of _where_ are you prince, exactly? Because I've begun to hear some conflicting rumors."

He took a half step back and lifted the corner of his lip in a sneer. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sif laughed as if he had just told the funniest joke she had ever heard. "Perhaps you have confused _dead_ with _deaf_, Loki. You know precisely to what I am referring." She studied her fingernails. "It stands as thus, ice prince." Loki flinched at the title. "Asgard is suffering from the worst winter they have ever seen. As you can see, I have quite the steady influx of newly dead."

She waved a hand around, and Loki looked away from her to survey the seemingly never-ending line of deceased shuffling down the black path.

"They need this winter to stop. I need the dead to stop pouring in like an avalanche." She smiled to herself at her joke; Loki rolled his eyes. "I brought you here. I solved the problem."

"I don't believe you," he retorted.

She just smiled. "I thought you might say as much. Since you do not possess my powers to survey the Nine Realms without some sort of assistance, come. I will show you."

She stood with a fluid motion, stretching like a cat. She strolled through the cavernous space, and Loki was privately glad she knew where she was going. Every turning looked quite the same to him. As they walked, he noticed hallways and wondered where they led. As if reading his mind, Sif spoke over her shoulder.

"Those halls lead to my private chambers and my study. The dead don't much pay attention to what I do, but sometimes I prefer to take my leisure where I don't feel as if thousands of souls are watching. This one," she added, making an abrupt turn.

Loki turned on his heel to keep up with her. She led him into a large, circular room. The only thing in the room was a large, raised stone pool. There was enough space around the edges for them to pass, but only just. Sif walked halfway around the basin and placed her hands on either side. She looked up at him when he came to a halt beside her. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he nodded. She dipped a finger into the basin. Ripples spread from her finger all the way through the water. When the first ripple reached the other side, the water began to shift, to change. Loki soon found himself looking at Asgard.

"It's not snowing," he murmured.

Sif smiled tightly. "No," she said. "It is not. It stopped the moment I took you from above."

Asgardians, bound in thick layers, trudged through the snow. But they seemed to be clearing it out fairly well. The training grounds were cleared already; Loki could see several soldiers back to their practice. Many of the people looked relieved. There was an air of optimism that Loki had not seen for several weeks. He looked sharply at Sif, who had been watching his face.

"You have no proof," he replied.

She spread her hands. "Very well. If you would care to return to Asgard, which you seemed to keen to get away from, considering where I found you, I will take you back. But know that they will only resent you more for giving them a reprieve and then bringing back the terrible winter."

He growled and turned away. She was right, but Loki had no wish to concede. He did not wish to return to Asgard. But was the underworld the better choice?

Something must have shown on his face, for Sif stood taller and clapped her hands briskly. Loki glanced over at her.

"Welcome to the underworld, ice prince," she said, a trace of her mocking smile back on her lips. "Best make yourself comfortable."


	3. holding court

Sif left Loki alone for the rest of the day. She had things she had to take care of—namely, checking on the new souls. They no longer came as steadily as before, and she pointed Loki in the direction of her library before moving to see about the new dead. They shied away when they spotted her approaching, and one young woman jumped to hide behind another. Sif sighed, stopping what she deemed a safe distance away and holding up her hands to show she meant no harm.

"What do you want?" one of the women—the one not cowering—asked.

"I mean you no harm," she said, keeping her hands raised, her palms facing towards them.

"Then what do you want?"

"I just wished to welcome you," she said. "That is all. As the Lady of the Dead, I try to—"

"It's _your_ fault we're here," the cowering woman said. She looked a tad hysterical. "I want nothing of your _welcome_."

Sif dipped her head. "Very well," she said, and returned to her main chambers.

For the rest of the day, she sat her obsidian throne, keeping watch on things both above and below. Some of the dead approached to speak with her, some to ask for leave to go above for just a short while and see a loved one. These requests she had to refuse because, while it was not beyond her power, she could not allow every soul to simply wander the world of the living. If they attempted to remain, it would become problematic, and Sif was a firm mistress but not a cruel one. She had no wish to exert force over the dead. They were simply yearning for something they could no longer attain.

She understood the feeling.

Some just wanted to talk, which was something Sif wished would occur more often. The souls who came to speak with her on friendly terms were typically souls who had been in the Underworld for a while. They sat on the steps below her throne and told her about their lives—how they have loved, lost, and everything in between. She asked them questions—about their children, about dreams they wished they'd fulfilled, about dreams they _did_ fulfill. It made being the Lady of the Dead considerably more bearable, these occasional chats with the deceased. They were by no means perfect, and many of those in the Underworld still hated and feared her. But they expected things of her, and so she gave them what they wanted.

Loki came to see her just as she was preparing to turn in for the evening. She sat up straighter in the throne and raised an eyebrow to indicate he should speak.

"I was wondering just where, exactly, I am going to sleep."

"Ah."

Sif had forgotten that Loki needed ordinary things like sleep—and _food_. She had bedchambers, but she didn't have to sleep very often, and she didn't have to eat at all unless she wanted to. As such, she hadn't thought about basic needs that he would have, like a bed or nourishment. She cleared her throat and tried to sound like she hadn't come up with her idea in the past several seconds.

"Unfortunately, I do not have guest quarters to offer you. I will see what I can do about that in the near future, but in the meantime, you are welcome to my bed." She rose and strode in the direction of her bedchamber. She heard Loki catch up to her a moment later.

"That's very forward of you, Lady Sif," he said archly.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and snorted. "Do not flatter yourself, ice prince." He frowned at the title. "I do not need to sleep."

Her bedchamber, like the other rooms in her cavernous hall, did not have doors. The archway was simply chiseled out of the dark stone around it. A large bed dominated the room. It was circular, the bed frame carved out of something black and shiny. It was carved in the shape of a sleeping dragon, as if the dragon curled around the bed. Its head rested on top of the tip of its tail. The sheets were a deep crimson. Sif stood in the doorway and gestured with her hand.

"This is my bed. You are welcome to it while I make arrangements for guest quarters to be prepared for you." He stepped past her into the room, moving slowly, as if afraid the dragon around the bed would wake and spit fire at him. "I will also make arrangements for clothes to be brought here for you, and you will have food tomorrow."

She didn't leave him time to reply; she turned on her heel and strode off down the hall.

She spent the evening obtaining everything she needed for him to live comfortably in the Underworld. The living were so _annoying_ with all of their needs sometimes. She was spoiled with the dead; while they had eaten in life, they had no reason to eat in death. The only time Sif ate was when she attended a banquet among the living, and even then she ate to be polite rather than out of any kind of hunger. She found his clothes first, sneaking into his quarters in Asgard and bundling them to take with her. She had no desire to be spotted by anyone, especially Fandral, who may or may not have remembered his part in her kidnapping escapade. She left the bundle of clothes outside of her bedroom and went off in search of food.

It wasn't finding the food, necessarily, that was the problem. Preparing it was much more difficult. Because she didn't eat very much, she had difficulty determining just what was supposed to be done with it. After she set a leg of meat on fire, she decided she would stick to cold meats and fruit until she could figure out how to cook properly.

Sif had no servants, although she liked to keep up the pretense of having some. But there were none like her in the underworld, and asking the dead to serve her would have been more than she could bear. They resented her enough; she did not need to add charges of enslavement to their list of complaints against her.

She was waiting in the hall when Loki rose the next morning, breakfast on the table in what she thought was an appealing spread. He eyed it as he strode in and took the seat at the opposite end of the table.

"This is breakfast?" he asked skeptically.

Sif arched an eyebrow. "Yes?"

He nodded, lips pouting out in what she assumed was an expression of appreciation. He reached for something close to him, then halted and looked up at her. "You are not eating?"

She smiled. "I do not eat."

He sniffed. "You do not eat, and yet you have a hall?"

"I always hoped I would have the opportunity to entertain, but I never seem to have guests."

He smirked and tucked into his food.


	4. cerberus

After some time, Loki went exploring.

He was sure there was a place to bathe in the Underworld, but he had been unable to find it. The network of tunnels in Sif's underground palace confused him, and he often found himself turned around or right back where he had started. He never told Sif how lost he got, sometimes wandering the tunnels for hours without finding an exit, but he suspected that she knew. She asked him arch questions over his supper—how he was finding the underworld, if he had discovered anything new while she had been attending to her duty. He always gave some appropriately cryptic answer, but he didn't think she was satisfied.

He had been washing himself from a stone basin in Sif's bedroom. She had informed him that they were working on clearing on space for a guest room—and by "they" he strongly suspected "she," for he had seen no servants—but until then, he was free to use her chambers. He would be sorry to give up the bed, which he had grown rather attached to. It was a shame that something so expertly carved was so rarely used.

While the basin was doing its job—he washed thoroughly enough that he was far from dirty—he was growing tired of acrobatics it was necessary to perform in order to get himself totally clean. The Underworld wasn't necessarily a _dirty_ place, yet Loki felt compelled to wash each morning, as if removing some kind of grime. He also knew that there must have been a place to bathe, for he had seen Sif on more than one occasion with her hair still damp, and she certainly hadn't been washing in her own bedroom. Still, he refused to ask her. He would find it on his own.

He set off in search of it one morning, a bundle of fresh clothing and a cloth with which to dry himself tucked under his arm. When he reached a fork, he took the right passage, feeling as if he had thoroughly explored the left in his wanderings. He took several wrong turns but soon found himself in a tunnel he didn't think he recognized. It was, admittedly, difficult to tell. While Sif seemed able to tell each stalactite and stalagmite apart, Loki would have preferred if there had been some sort of proper signage directing him to the location.

Like every other chamber in the Underworld, the bathing chamber had no door. But Loki had grown so accustomed to the lack of doors that he simply strode in, placed his bundle a safe distance away from the water, and disrobed. The chamber was large enough to fit two pools, and after some inspection Loki determined that one was warm and the other was cold. While the cold hardly bothered him, he chose the warm pool. He lingered longer than he had to, doing some laps and taking the time to think.

The Underworld was not quite so terrible, and he was admittedly surprised by how little he thought of Asgard. Sif had shown him the way to her expansive library, and he spent most of his time there, learning things that the books in Asgard would never have taught him. There was also a special, locked case that Sif instructed him not to touch, which naturally excited his curiosity. However, when he had tried to open it, he had been wracked by disturbing hallucinations that had left him crippled and shaking on the floor until Sif found him there several hours later.

"I told you," she tutted, even as she helped him back to bed. "Those books contain information on every soul in the Underworld, and they are not yours to touch."

"Can _you_ touch them?"

"Of course. But why should I want to?"

He was interested in the Underworld, with its mysterious passageways and books about souls, with the elusive ferryman who brought the souls to their final rest and the creature he sometimes heard howling and barking. He knew there were things that the books in Sif's library could not tell him, things he could only know about through observation, and while he wasn't necessarily afraid of meandering the Underworld by himself, he also had no wish of becoming one of the dead. He wished to observe them, not join them.

But most of all, he was interested in the Underworld's mistress.

She was stoic at times, sitting across the long table from him while he ate. He would often catch her watching him, and she responded to his snide remarks with some of her own. She hardly ever seemed bothered by him, no matter how he tried to unnerve her. It was, on the whole—

"Impressive."

Loki started and looked up from the pool. He had been staring into it absently, and he hadn't heard Sif approach. She stood in the doorway, clad in her usual black, her hair slightly wild around her face, and she wore a smirk that told Loki all he needed to know.

He returned her smirk with one of his own. "Yes," he drawled. "So I've heard it said." He drifted over to the side and stepped out of the pool, water sloshing onto the stone. He retrieved his cloth to dry himself, and although he had the peculiar feeling that she was watching him, when he turned to look, her back was to him.

"I confess I am surprised you found your way here so soon," she said, turning her head to speak over her shoulder. "You've been trying to find it for several days, haven't you?"

"So you've been trying to sneak up on me in the bath for several days, is that it? Really, Lady Sif, if you wished to see me naked, all you have to do is ask." He finished buckling on his armor and gathered up the bundle of old clothes and the wet cloth. She turned back around to face him, her eyes flicking up and down his frame before they settled back on his face.

"I have something to show you," she said. "We'll stop off at my room so you may leave your things."

She navigated the tunnels with ease, and though Loki tried to remember which turns they had taken, he had a feeling he wouldn't remember the next time he tried to return. Sif led him to the bank of the river, and then they turned and walked along it. He peeked inside and was surprised to see a face that was not his looking back at him. As he watched, a ghostly hand reached out of the water and the fingers flexed as if trying to grasp at him.

"Ah," Sif said, having turned to see what was keeping him. "Yes, do be careful of the souls. They tend to get a little…_grabby_, and as you're living, it would be fatal to be pulled in."

Loki stepped away from the water and kept closer behind Sif, who didn't turn again to see if he was following.

"Where are we going?"

"Just a bit farther."

Where she took him was a huge cavern. Across a lake that fed the river was a queue. One by one, people shuffled into a small boat, piloted by a ferryman that Loki thought it best not to look at directly. Directly in front of them, however, Sif prodded something with her boot that Loki originally thought was a large, oddly shaped rock formation. However, as soon as Sif nudged it, it moved. Loki stared as three pairs of enormous eyes opened, and three huge canine heads lifted from massive paws that could have killed him in one swipe. The six eyes blinked blearily at Sif, and then the beast let out a surprisingly puppy-like yip that was so thunderous in volume Loki thought he'd be knocked over with the force of it.

"This is Cerberus," she said with a smile, reaching up a hand to scratch the chin of one of the heads. "My guard dog."

Loki eyed the beast distastefully. He had never been one for dogs, and certainly not for dogs this size. It did, however, explain the barking. "What do you need a guard dog for?"

"You'd be quite surprised how many of the living attempt to sneak in and rescue dead loved ones."

"Is that so."

"I can't afford to stand guard all the time, and so Cerberus does my guarding for me. If a living person gets on the boat, he will know about it."

"And then what?"

"He either expels them or they fling themselves over into the river the boat is crossing, which is unfortunate for them. It's the river of Pain," she said, seeing his raised eyebrow.

"Ah."

"Would you care to meet Charon, the Ferryman?"

Loki eyed the mad, demonic-looking Ferryman as he poled through the river. "Perhaps another time."


End file.
